Hi List, Interesting discussion. I agree with statement below: "It seems to me that the question shouldn't be whether or not Academia.edu treats us well (or treats us better than commercial publishers), but whether Academia.edu is really the best we can do? I might be a hopeless optimist, but I think we can do better." My main issue with academia.edu is that it appears to be yet another walled garden. This is a bit off topic, but I also didn't like their feature (I'm sure used elsewhere, but I first saw it with academia.edu) that when you search for someone on google and click the link to their academia.edu page, the person receives an email from academia.edu saying words to effect: "someone from X just searched for you on google", where X is the country. I stopped clicking through to academia.edu when I realised this. Rob -- Dr Robert Ackland Associate Professor and Deputy Director (Education) Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute Australian National University homepage: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/ackland-rj project: http://voson.anu.edu.au<http://voson.anu.edu.au/> On 09/12/13 13:42, Rex Troumbley wrote: Hi all, This has been an interesting and timely debate. I'll contribute by pointing out that academics usually write for impact and not money, which allows them to focus on obscure subjects or unpopular research topics rather than on what sells. Unfortunately, we have allowed public gifts from the writers and reviewers to be turned into commodities by groups who have added the least to the process of producing knowledge. Peter Suber pointed out in his excellent book on Open Access <http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/open-access><http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/open-access> that some of the largest journal publishers earn higher profits than big oil companies. Perhaps too much energy has been wasted defending the peer-review process or the value of editors (when they've never really been under attack) which might have been better directed towards creating a commercial-free academic commons. It seems to me that the question shouldn't be whether or not Academia.edu treats us well (or treats us better than commercial publishers), but whether Academia.edu is really the best we can do? I might be a hopeless optimist, but I think we can do better. Rex Troumbley, PhD Candidate Department of Political Science University of Hawaii at Manoa